1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automated financial transaction system comprising a plurality of automated tellers machines (ATMs), responsive to operations of customers, for performing various transactions and a host computer, communicatably connected with the ATMs via exclusive lines, for managing the transactions, and more particularly to such an automated financial transaction system useful when used in remittance transactions in financial institutions and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional automated financial transaction systems of financial institutions or other similar organizations, to make a remittance transaction for a particular remittance destination using an automated tellers machine (ATM), the applicant for remittance (remittance source) inputs, as the common practice, information about the remittance source by inputting, in addition to information about the remittance destination, the name and telephone number of the applicant from an operation panel or other device of the ATM, or by using a remittance pass, which was in advance created by registering the foregoing necessary information.
Meanwhile, an accounting host computer (management apparatus) performs the remittance procedure in accordance with the information input from the remittance-source ATM and sends the remittance-source information input in the above-mentioned manner, and also prints the name of the applicant and other necessary information on a passbook or the like of remittance destination. And at the remittance destination, the remittance source is identified based on the information (e.g., the applicant's name) about the remittance source.
In an attempt to minimize the remittance-destination customer's labor when identifying the remittance source, demands have arisen to add a message for the remittance destination to the remittance information during a remittance transaction.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. SHO 61-153762 discloses a technique of inputting a message from a keyboard during the remittance procedure at an ATM. And Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI 10-91841 discloses a more specific technique of indicating on the display of an ATM a plurality of predetermined fixed sentences for selection by the applicant for remittance and printing the selected sentence along with the above-mentioned necessary information (applicant's name, telephone number, etc.) on the remittance-destination customer's passbook, for example. Thanks to these prior art techniques, the convenience of the remittance-destination customer and the applicant for remittance as well has been improved as a message other than the usual necessary information (such as the applicant's name and telephone number) is notified from the applicant for remittance (remittance source) to the remittance destination.
However, according to the foregoing techniques of sending a message in characters such as fixed sentences for the remittance destination, since the message to be sent is composed of only characters and symbols, communication between the applicant for remittance (remittance source) and the remittance-destination customer would be restricted. For the same reason, even when the remittance-destination customer identifies the remittance source, the remittance-destination customer has to presume the remittance source from the applicant's name printed on a passbook or a slip and the contents of the message and hence cannot identify the person or party who actually made the remittance transaction.
As a solution, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI 9-218971 discloses another technique of improving the convenience during the remittance transaction by having the applicant for remittance input a message for the remittance destination in type character, handwritten character/hand-drawn image, etc. using an input pen, sending to a host computer the remittance information with the input message added as text data and/or image data, and printing the message on a slip or a passbook of the remittance destination.
As another solution, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI 7-319975 discloses still another technique of having the applicant for remittance input a message (image, voice) for the remittance destination from a camera and/or a voice input section of the remittance-source ATM, storing in an accounting host computer the image and/or voice message from the remittance source together with the information about the remittance source, then sending the message stored in the accounting host computer to an ATM in the form of communicating data when the remittance-destination customer has access to the message from the last-named ATM, and finally inputting the received message from an output device of the last-named ATM.
In the above-mentioned conventional automated financial transaction systems, according to the techniques of sending and receiving image and voice as a message for the remittance source as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publications Nos. HEI 9-218971 and HEI 7-319975, since the image and/or voice message is temporarily registered in the accounting host computer as communicating data, whose amount would usually be huge as compared to text data, the accounting host computer must have storage areas for storing a large amount of message data or the communication line to connect between the ATM and the accounting host computer requires a high-speed communication line that can afford to send and receive huge data. Accordingly, to put these known techniques into practice, all of the existing information infrastructure have to be reconstructed; which would necessitate a vast investment for installation and hence would not be realistic.
Further, since the individual accounting host computer usually has a different electronic transaction format for every financial institution, the electronic transaction format has to be changed. At that time, although text data of the remittance information can be changed at high speed because its relatively less data amount, it would take very long time to change the format of image and/or voice data so that sending of a message containing image and/or voice data would be substantially impossible.